236 THE HUNTING FIELD 



very watchful, restless, grey eyes, full of anxiety and suspicion. 

 " Conscience, which makes cowards of us all," keeps Shabby- 

 hounde in a constant state of alarm. The meet of hounds, so 

 enjoyable to the sportsman, so fruitful in anticipations, and so 

 productive of agreeable surprises, is to him a scene of constant 

 nervous dread and anxiety. He docs not knoiv zvho may cast up. 

 The recollection of his misdeeds crowd upon his memory, and his 

 tormenting brain conjures the figures of appearing sportsmen 

 into the bodies of those whom his ingenuity has defrauded. He 

 does not know how parties will receive him. He does not know 

 whether the secret of his last "do " may have oozed out, how 

 many of the lies he told in effecting it may have been detected, 

 or what Groom in whose power he has placed himself may have 

 betrayed him. All these are sad drawbacks to the pleasures 

 of the meet — sad drawbacks to the pleasures of anything. 



To the man of sensitive mind there can be no humiliation so 

 great as the quiet, silent, cold shoulder reproof of a party of 

 gentlemen. 



Shabbyhounde's coat, of course, is a dress one — not only a 

 dress one in cut, but absolutely an evening one. These dress 

 coats for hunting in — these 



■' Beds by night, and chests of drawers by day," 



have always appeared to us to be the economy of extravagance, 

 paltry in conception and contemptible in execution. If a man 

 is such a determined out-and-out sportsman that he must 

 always have the insignia of his calling about him, surely he 

 can afford a coat for each division of the day, and not have to 

 look forward to converting the superfine cloth of the drawing- 

 room into the defier of thorns, and storms, briars and bushes, 

 out of doors. 



We are quite aware that, generally speaking, these coats 

 are launched on the service they are meant for — that they go 

 at once into the hunting field, but the theory is the same, they 

 originated in a paltry idea of converting dress coats into 



